Methodius, De Lepra – opening portion now online in English

Regular readers will remember that I commissioned an English translation of the German version by Bonwetsch of Methodius’ De Lepra (On leprosy). I did so, because the work is preserved in an Old Slavonic text, which has never been published, plus Greek fragments. The GCS series published a German translation by Bonwetsch of the Old Slavonic, interspersed with the surviving Greek remains (for which no translation was provided).

Unfortunately the translator had the greatest difficulty with ecclesiastical language, and I found myself investing more and more time in making what he produced make sense. This seemed to demoralise him, such that he stopped worrying about whether his output actually made sense in English. The final straw was when he delivered a long chunk, wherein many of the sentences weren’t even grammatical. At that point I terminated the contract, foreseeing that I would have to invest just as much time correcting this as I would if I had decided to do the whole thing myself. I still had to pay rather more than I really felt the work was worth, particularly as he had not troubled to respond to my queries on one set of pages at all.

What was done, to an adequate standard, was the first 6 pages of Bonwetsch, minus a long Greek chunk in the middle of the last two. This is now online here. As ever, I make this public domain; do whatever you wish with it, personal, educational or commercial.

Not sure what to do next. I’d still like this work translated, but I feel a bit bruised at the moment!